Donald Trump’s tariffs will send international trade into reverse this year, depressing global economic growth, the World Trade Organization has warned.

In its latest snapshot of the global trading system, the Geneva-based institution says it had previously expected goods trade to expand by a healthy 2.7% this year. As a result of Washington’s trade policy, it is now forecasting a 0.2% decline.

Presenting the forecasts, the WTO’s director general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said she was particularly concerned about the “decoupling” of the US and China, calling it “a phenomenon that is really worrying to me”.

She said trade between the two geopolitical rivals was expected to plunge by 81-91% without exemptions for tech products such as smartphones – saying this was “tantamount to a decoupling of the two economies” and would have, “far-reaching consequences”.

Okonjo-Iweala said the WTO was canvassing its member countries about whether to convene an emergency meeting to discuss the situation.

In its report, the organisation says: “The outlook for global trade has deteriorated sharply due to a surge in tariffs and trade policy uncertainty.”

It had previously forecast global GDP growth of 2.8% for 2025, but now expects a weaker 2.2%.

The US has imposed tariffs of 10% on all imports, with much higher rates for China totalling 145%, and on specific sectors including cars and steel. The WTO expects the biggest impact of the policy to be a sharp decline in trade with the US – with other regions still expected to experience growth.

Trump’s far larger “reciprocal” tariffs were paused last week for 90 days after a violent reaction in financial markets. The WTO warns that if these are reimposed after the hiatus, it would have a much greater impact, causing a 0.8% decline in global goods trade.

If this was followed by a surge in “trade policy uncertainty” worldwide, as other countries readjust their policies in response, the WTO suggests the effects would be an even greater 1.5% fall in trade. And in this worst-case scenario, the WTO predicts even weaker global GDP growth, of just 1.7%.

After Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement on 2 April was followed by a string of sometimes apparently contradictory statements from Washington, the WTO warns that uncertainty in itself is an important contributor to the risks of a slowdown.

“Uncertainty fosters an increased prudence in decision-making,” the WTO says, pointing to evidence that “trade policy uncertainty can, among other things, dampen business confidence, reducing business investment and thereby impairing economic growth.”

It adds: “Ultimately, the degree to which uncertainty can be managed by firms will be a key determinant of whether the positive macroeconomic momentum observed in 2024 translates into sustained global trade growth in the coming years.”

The International Monetary Fund and World Bank have also warned about the potential shock to trade from a tariff war.

Ajay Banga, head of the World Bank, said growing uncertainty would lead to slower global growth than expected.

Speaking before the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington next week, he urged developing world countries to negotiate with neighbours and the US to lower tariffs, adding “the quicker we do it, the better”.

Banga said tariffs were often higher in the developed world and were associated with outsourcing jobs from industrialised countries. He argued this economic model held back the development of independent and more resilient nations.

The WTO predicts some “diversion” of trade, as Beijing seeks new markets for its goods outside the US. Chinese exports to regions outside North America are expected to expand by between 4% and 9%, in 2025.

Services trade is not directly hit by Trump’s tariffs, but the WTO expects it to be affected indirectly. “Tariff induced declines in goods trade weaken demand for related services such as transport and logistics, while broader uncertainty dampens discretionary spending on travel and slows investment-related services,” it warns.

The WTO acts as the watchdog for global trading rules, and has previously provided a forum for the negotiation of international trade deals – but its role has increasingly come into question in recent years, as the progress of globalisation has slowed.

Trump’s tariffs have been applied in complete disregard to the “most favoured nation” rule that forms the bedrock of the system overseen by the WTO – which is meant to mean that trade advantages offered to one member-country should be extended to all.

China has urged the WTO to investigate the impact of the Trump tariffs. Beijing said in a statement to the WTO last week: “Reciprocal tariffs are not – and will never be – a cure for trade imbalances. Instead, they will backfire, harming the US itself.”

US stocks have fallen further after Donald Trump imposed a new trade restriction on the chip designer Nvidia, rattling investors and triggering a sell-off across the semiconductor industry.

The S&P 500 index dropped by about 1.3% in early trading, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq index down 2.1%. The Dow Jones fell 0.6%.

Nvidia, the Californian company at the heart of the revolution in artificial intelligence technology, lost billions of dollars from its market value at the opening bell, with its shares down about 6%.

The sell-off, which has spread to semiconductor makers in Asia and Europe, comes after Nvidia said the Trump administration had restricted the sale of its H20 chip in China by means of new licence requirements.

The company now expects to report a $5.5bn (£34.1bn) hit in its financial quarter that ends on 27 April, covering the cost of licences for its stock of the chips and associated sales commitments.

The US restriction will also hit the MI308 processor made by rival chip business Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Its shares dropped 6.2% as it expects to take a charge of as much as $800m (£604m) because of the new rule.

In Asia, South Korean semiconductor businesses such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix fell by about 4% overnight, and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) dropped 2.5%.

Meanwhile in Europe, shares in semiconductor tech firm ASML fell 4% as its chief executive, Christophe Fouquet, said tariffs had “increased uncertainty in the macro environment”. The Dutch company, which produces lithography machines used to make chips, also reported orders of €3.94bn (£3.37bn) in its first financial quarter, about €1bn less than investors had expected.

So far the chip industry has been exempt from the 10% tariffs imposed by the US since 2 April. The US government has historically built up regulations to limit Chinese access to advanced chips – including under Joe Biden as it raced for supremacy in AI. But the Trump administration has been paving the way for more levies on the sector.

Global stocks were also hit by a warning from the World Trade Organization. It said Trump’s tariffs will send international trade into reverse this year and depress global economic growth. While the WTO had previously expected goods trade to expand by 2.7% this year, it now forecasts a 0.2% decline.

There were some more positive indicators across the market, with a 1.4% rise in US retail sales in March being higher than expected. It compared with a 0.2% gain in February, according to the US Census Bureau, though this could suggest consumers were snapping up goods before the implementation of tariffs.

Oil prices also rose on Wednesday amid hopes of trade talks between China and the US, and following a report that Iraq plans to cut oil production in April. Brent crude rose by 84 cents, or 1.3%, to $65.49 a barrel, while US crude rose by a similar amount to $62.12 a barrel.

If there are trade talks with China, they will involve the country’s new international trade negotiator. Beijing unexpectedly announced on Wednesday that Li Chenggang will take over the role from the veteran trade tsar Wang Shouwen. No reason was given for the change, although it came amid a broader reshuffle in Chinese government.

In the US, California has launched a legal challenge to Trump’s tariffs, accusing the president of overstepping his authority and threatening trade in the state. The lawsuit was brought by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and its attorney general, Rob Bonta.

Also on Wednesday, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that he would attend a trade meeting with Japanese officials and his cabinet secretaries.

“Japan is coming in today to negotiate Tariffs, the cost of military support, and “TRADE FAIRNESS,” he wrote. “I will attend the meeting, along with Treasury & Commerce Secretaries. Hopefully something can be worked out which is good (GREAT!) for Japan and the USA!”

Japan was hit with a 24% tariff rate on its exports to the US, though, like most of Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, this was paused for 90 days last week. However, a 10% universal rate remains in place, as well as a 25% duty on the sale of Japanese cars to Americans.

America’s advanced weapons manufacturers are likely to face a critical shortfall of key rare-earth minerals that they import from China as a consequence of Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with Beijing.

New export licensing restrictions imposed by China on seven rare earths are like to cause disruptions in supply to more than a dozen US defence and aerospace companies involved in the production of everything from fighter jets to submarines and drones, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a commentary.

The warning from CSIS was echoed in an expert opinion from the UK thinktank Chatham House, which said any further tightening of Chinese restrictions “has the potential to do serious damage to the US defence industry and undermine the Trump administration’s wider re-industrialisation ambitions”.

Chatham House said: “Ultimately, this could give Beijing a crucial strategic advantage in long-term US-China competition for military and technological supremacy and add to its existing manufacturing lead.”

The issue of rare earths has rapidly emerged as a significant achilles heel in Trump’s trade war with Beijing. The minerals covered by Chinese restrictions – samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium – are seven of the 17 rare earths in the periodic table.

While China has not outright banned export of the minerals, it has pointedly imposed licensing restrictions, in an echo of a similar dispute with Japan in 2012 when the price of rare earths increased tenfold.

The rare earths have a variety of industrial uses, including military uses, not least in the production of hi-tech magnets used in modern motors including electric vehicles.

China mines 70% of the world’s rare earths and processes 90% of the global supply, a situation that had long suited western customers because of the environmental issues associated with production – with no rare earth production taking place in the US at present.

The US has sought alternative supplies, including from Ukraine and potentially Greenland, driving two of the Trump administration’s most ham-fisted foreign policies: seeking to trade rare earths for an end to the war in Ukraine, and to control the Danish autonomous territory.

The minerals are used in a number of key US defence systems including F-35 fighter jets, Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines, Tomahawk missiles, radar systems, Predator unmanned aerial vehicles and the Joint Direct Attack Munition series of smart bombs.

The CSIS said the Chinese moves should have been entirely predictable amid warnings over US vulnerability to restrictions on supplies.

It said: “A number of policies have foreshadowed that export restrictions were on the horizon. China first weaponised rare earths in 2010 when it banned exports to Japan over a fishing trawler dispute. Between 2023 and 2025, China began imposing export restrictions of strategic materials to the United States, including gallium, germanium, antimony, graphite and tungsten.”

Commenting on China’s leverage over the issue of rare earths, William Matthews, a research fellow in Chatham House’s Asia Pacific programme, said: “This gives China a stranglehold over inputs into supply chains that are crucial to American primacy, from semiconductors to aircraft.

“China is leveraging its core role in supply chains from which the US has sought to exclude it, most notably semiconductors. The move sends a message: while the US might attempt to cut China off from the most advanced chips and other cutting-edge technologies, China could go one step further by cutting off the supply chain upstream.”

Matthews said one long-term risk for the US in a protracted trade war was that America and China were in the midst of a race to produce “sixth-generation” fighter aircraft, including the proposed US F-47 recently unveiled by Trump, giving China the advantage as it pursued its own production.

Any Chinese advantage in advanced military aircraft production, which the US has historically dominated, would be likely to feed into military tensions.

Vulnerabilities in rare-earth minerals supply have also long been acknowledged in civilian manufacturing, with Elon Musk’s Tesla aiming to reduce the rare earths used in its electric vehicles by 25% in recent years.

“This is not new, it’s been known about for over a decade,” Patrick Schröder, a researcher in global trade and the environment at Chatham House, said. “It has been flagged repeatedly. Lots of hi-tech industries can’t really manufacture much without rare earths.

“The reason China [has cornered the market in rare earths] is that production is often a very polluting and destructive process. For other countries it was fine for China to have that pollution. Which is fine as long as trade works and geopolitics doesn’t get in the way. Now all that’s changed.”

California is preparing to ask a court to block Donald Trump’s “illegal” tariffs, accusing the president of overstepping his authority and causing “immediate and irreparable harm” to the world’s fifth-largest economy.

The lawsuit, to be filed in federal court on Wednesday by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and attorney general, Rob Bonta, is the most significant challenge yet to Trump’s flurry of on-and-off-again tariffs. In the complaint, California officials argue that the US constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to impose tariffs and that the president’s invocation of emergency powers to unilaterally escalate a global trade war, which has rattled stock markets and raised fears of recession, is unlawful.

“President Trump’s unlawful tariffs are wreaking chaos on California families, businesses and our economy, driving up prices and threatening jobs,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re standing up for American families who can’t afford to let the chaos continue.”

Relying on a statute known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), Trump has issued a series of declarations imposing, reversing, delaying, restarting and modifying tariffs on the US’s trading partners.

The complaint argues that the law does not give the US president the authority to impose tariffs without the consent of Congress. It asks the court to declare Trump’s tariff orders “unlawful and void” and to order the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection to stop enforcing them.

“The president’s chaotic and haphazard implementation of tariffs is not only deeply troubling, it’s illegal,” Bonta said in a statement. “Californians are bracing for fallout from the impact of the president’s choices. From farmers in the Central Valley to small businesses in Sacramento and worried families at the kitchen table, this game the president is playing has very real consequences for Californians across our state.”

Trump has said tariffs are necessary to ensure “fair trade”, protect American workers and turn the US into an “industrial powerhouse”.

Earlier this month, on what he called “liberation day”, the president imposed a sweeping 10% tariff on nearly all imported goods and higher tariffs for a host of countries, most of which he later paused for 90 days.

A 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, the US’s largest trading partners, remains in effect, while Trump’s actions have provoked a trade war with China, its third-largest trading partner, subject to US tariffs of 145%.

California, the US’s largest importer and second-largest exporter with an economy larger than most countries, relies heavily on trade with Mexico, Canada and China, the state’s top trading partners. The complaint says the economic consequences of Trump’s tariffs on the state will be “significant”.

Newsom and Bonta will hold a joint press conference later on Wednesday in the Central Valley, where farmers are bracing for the consequences of Trump’s escalating trade war. California is the nation’s top agricultural exporter, shipping nuts, tomatoes, wine and rice around the world. California agricultural exports totalled nearly $24bn in 2022.

After the announcement of across-the-board levies, Newsom said his administration would pursue new trade deals with international partners to exempt California from retaliatory tariffs.

Earlier this week, a legal advocacy group filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of US businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the levies, asking the US court of international trade to block Trump’s tariffs.

The UK supreme court has ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex, in a victory for gender-critical campaigners.

Five judges from the UK supreme court ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs).

The judgment could have far-reaching ramifications and lead to greater restrictions on the access for trans women to services and spaces reserved for women. It prompted calls for the UK’s laws on gender recognition to be rewritten.

The UK government said the ruling brought “clarity and confidence” for women and those who run hospitals, sports clubs and women’s refuges.

A spokesperson said: “We have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex. Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government.”

The case was brought to the supreme court by the gender-critical campaign group For Women Scotland, which is backed financially by JK Rowling, after two Scottish courts rejected its arguments that the Equality Act’s definition of a woman was limited to people born biologically female.

Lord Hodge, the deputy president of the court, said the Equality Act was very clear that its provisions dealt with biological sex at birth, and not with a person’s acquired gender, regardless of whether they held a gender recognition certificate.

That affected policymaking on gender in sports and the armed services, hospitals, as well as women-only charities, and access to changing rooms and women-only spaces, he said.

In its 88-page judgment, the court said that while the word “biological” did not appear in the definition of man or woman in the Equality Act, “the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words corresponds with the biological characteristics that make an individual a man or a woman”.

If “sex” did not only mean biological sex in the 2010 legislation, providers of single-sex spaces including changing rooms, homeless hostels and medical services would face “practical difficulties”, it said.

The justices added: “If as a matter of law, a service provider is required to provide services previously limited to women also to trans women with a GRC, even if they present as biological men, it is difficult to see how they can then justify refusing to provide those services also to biological men.”

The justices added: “Read fairly and in context, the provisions relating to single-sex services can only be interpreted by reference to biological sex.”

The ruling represents a significant defeat for the Scottish government. For Women Scotland had initially challenged legislation that allowed trans women with a GRC to sit on public boards in posts reserved for women.

Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney, said his government accepted the court’s judgment. He said it clarified the limits of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which introduced gender recognition certificates for trans people.

“We will now engage on the implications of the ruling,” he said. “Protecting the rights of all will underpin our actions.”

The Scottish government defended its actions in the case, which it said were always guided by the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s advice. It said it would now engage with UK ministers and with the EHRC to look at the ruling’s implications, since the legislation involved was passed by Westminster.

Trans rights campaigners urged trans people and their supporters to remain calm about the decision.

The campaign group Scottish Trans said: “We are really shocked by today’s supreme court decision, which reverses 20 years of understanding of how the law recognises trans men and women with gender recognition certificates.

“We will continue working for a world in which trans people can get on with their lives with privacy, dignity and safety. That is something we all deserve.”

Sacha Deshmukh, the chief executive of the human rights group Amnesty International UK, which joined with the Scottish government in the supreme court case, said the decision was “clearly disappointing”.

“There are potentially concerning consequences for trans people, but it is important to stress that the court has been clear that trans people are protected under the Equality Act against discrimination and harassment,” he said.

“The ruling does not change the protection trans people are afforded under the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’, as well as other provisions under the Equality Act.”

Susan Smith, a co-founder of For Women Scotland, said the legal action had been “a really, really long road”. “Today the judges have said what we always believed to be the case, that women are protected by their biological sex,” she said.

“Sex is real and women can now feel safe that services and spaces designated for women are for women and we are enormously grateful to the supreme court for this ruling.”

In a social media post, Rowling said: “It took three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women with an army behind them to get this case heard by the Supreme Court,” adding: “I’m so proud to know you.”

Hodge, the deputy president of the court, said it believed the position taken by the Scottish government and the EHRC that people with gender recognition certificates did qualify as women, while those without did not, created “two sub-groups”.

This would confuse any organisations they were involved with. A public body could not know whether a trans woman did or did not have that certificate because the information was private and confidential.

And allowing trans women the same legal status as biological women could also affect spaces and services designed specifically for lesbians, who had also suffered historical discrimination and abuse.

Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the EHRC, said it was pleased the ruling had dealt with its concerns about the lack of clarity around single-sex and lesbian-only spaces, but would need time to fully understand its implications.

“We are pleased that this judgment addresses several of the difficulties we highlighted in our submission to the court, including the challenges faced by those seeking to maintain single-sex spaces, and the rights of same-sex attracted persons to form associations.”

Burglars tunneled through a concrete wall to gain access to a Los Angeles jewelry store, making off with at least $10m worth of watches, pendants, gold chains and other merchandise, police said.

The heist happened around 9.30pm on Sunday at Love Jewels on Broadway in the heart of downtown, according to officer David Cuellar with the LA police department.

Investigators were reviewing security camera footage that shows the suspects entering the store from a large hole they drilled from the property next door, he said.

“They tunneled through multiple levels of concrete into the target location,” Cuellar said on Tuesday.

An unknown number of suspects fled through the same hole and drove off in a late model Chevy truck, he said. The heist was not discovered until store employees arrived for work on Monday morning.

Initial estimates were that about $10m worth of merchandise was stolen, Cuellar said, adding that the number could change. In an interview with local television station KTTV, the owner said the loss was upwards of $20m.

In security video obtained by KTTV, the sound of a drill can be heard from inside the store. Once inside, the burglars apparently cut the cameras’ wires.

The TV station showed holes cut in a large safe, overturned jewel cases and an empty bottle of scotch whisky.

Love Jewels’s website advertises items like a 14-karat yellow gold rope chain for $1,200, heart-shaped gold earrings for $200 and a gold cross pendant for $550. Videos on the store’s social media shows glass cases filled with rings, watches and necklaces.

Phone calls and emails were sent to the store on Tuesday.

Detectives examined the scene for fingerprints and DNA, police said.

Ecuador’s vice-president, Verónica Abad, has accused the country’s president – her former running mate Daniel Noboa – of “violating the democratic code” by using the state apparatus to gain an advantage over the other candidates in the country’s runoff election.

In Sunday’s vote, the rightwing incumbent defeated the leftist Luisa González by a considerable margin after narrowly beating her in the first round.

Although Abad said she did not support the opposition’s claim that electoral fraud occurred during the vote, she argued that the election was unfair because Noboa refused to step down from office while running – as required by the constitution.

Abad and Noboa used to be allies when they ran together in the 2023 snap election for an 18-month interim term, but she was not part of the current president’s re-election ticket.

They stopped speaking even before taking office, and she claims the president has since then taken successive steps to sideline her – actions she describes as “gender-based political violence”.

Abad said she still did not know the reason for the sudden rupture, after which Noboa immediately sent her to Israel to serve as a “peace envoy”.

“I’m the mother of a minor and another son who is in university, and I had to make my move in just seven days to ‘avoid the escalation’ of the conflict between Israel and Palestine – a war that wasn’t ours. It was completely illogical,” she said.

He later appointed her chargé d’affaires in Turkey.

Abad claims that Noboa’s main goal was to prevent her from assuming the presidency during this year’s campaign.

Despite Noboa’s refusal to step down, Ecuador’s electoral authorities allowed the election to go ahead.

After a tight first round in which he edged out González by fewer than 17,000 votes, Noboa won the runoff by nearly 1.2 million – a result that no opinion poll had predicted.

González has called for a recount, but observers sent by the European Union and the Organization of American States said that, although there was an “imbalance” and “conditions of inequity” between the candidates, there was no indication of fraud.

Shortly before the second round, however, Noboa announced $560m (£423m) in bonuses and social aid packages for seven different population groups, including police and military personnel, farmers, and young people aged 18 to 29.

“Noboa designed a system of cash transfers – a clientelist policy tactically aimed at the social and electoral segments where he needed to mobilise votes,” said Luis C Córdova-Alarcón, a political violence researcher and professor at the Central University of Ecuador. “That’s how you can begin to understand where that one million-vote lead came from,” he said.

Córdova-Alarcón said there were two other contributing factors in Noboa’s victory.

The first was the lingering memory of the 10-year presidency of Rafael Correa – González’s political mentor – a period marked by social advances thanks to a commodity boom, but also by corruption and accusations of creeping authoritarianism.

The second was the fact that what was once one of the safest countries in Latin America has, in recent years, recorded the region’s highest homicide rate – a crisis that Noboa’s declared “war on drugs” in January 2024 has failed to resolve.

Noboa’s disregard for the constitution and the numerous human rights violations committed by his mano dura (iron fist) offensive earned the president mounting accusations of authoritarianism.

Córdova-Alarcón said the outlook was only likely to worsen. “Given the context in which this election has taken place, Noboa has no incentives to change,” he said.

Abad said that although she still fears for her life due to her public disputes with Noboa, she hoped that he “has learned to listen and can fulfil his promises because the problems haven’t gone: we still face sky-high insecurity, a struggling economy, and widespread poverty”.

In March, the electoral court suspended her political rights for allegedly committing “gender-based political violence” against Noboa’s foreign minister, Gabriela Sommerfeld, by accusing her of persecution. Meanwhile, Abad’s complaints against Noboa have gone nowhere.

Noboa’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but at a campaign event in late March, the president referred to Abad as “a traitor who’s already been dismissed”.

Officially, she remains Ecuador’s vice-president until 24 May, when Noboa begins his new term with businesswoman María José Pinto as his second-in-command.

“Until 24 May and beyond, I will continue to fight for my rights because, in the end, it sets a precedent for those women who will occupy this position,” said Abad.

Ecuador’s vice-president, Verónica Abad, has accused the country’s president – her former running mate Daniel Noboa – of “violating the democratic code” by using the state apparatus to gain an advantage over the other candidates in the country’s runoff election.

In Sunday’s vote, the rightwing incumbent defeated the leftist Luisa González by a considerable margin after narrowly beating her in the first round.

Although Abad said she did not support the opposition’s claim that electoral fraud occurred during the vote, she argued that the election was unfair because Noboa refused to step down from office while running – as required by the constitution.

Abad and Noboa used to be allies when they ran together in the 2023 snap election for an 18-month interim term, but she was not part of the current president’s re-election ticket.

They stopped speaking even before taking office, and she claims the president has since then taken successive steps to sideline her – actions she describes as “gender-based political violence”.

Abad said she still did not know the reason for the sudden rupture, after which Noboa immediately sent her to Israel to serve as a “peace envoy”.

“I’m the mother of a minor and another son who is in university, and I had to make my move in just seven days to ‘avoid the escalation’ of the conflict between Israel and Palestine – a war that wasn’t ours. It was completely illogical,” she said.

He later appointed her chargé d’affaires in Turkey.

Abad claims that Noboa’s main goal was to prevent her from assuming the presidency during this year’s campaign.

Despite Noboa’s refusal to step down, Ecuador’s electoral authorities allowed the election to go ahead.

After a tight first round in which he edged out González by fewer than 17,000 votes, Noboa won the runoff by nearly 1.2 million – a result that no opinion poll had predicted.

González has called for a recount, but observers sent by the European Union and the Organization of American States said that, although there was an “imbalance” and “conditions of inequity” between the candidates, there was no indication of fraud.

Shortly before the second round, however, Noboa announced $560m (£423m) in bonuses and social aid packages for seven different population groups, including police and military personnel, farmers, and young people aged 18 to 29.

“Noboa designed a system of cash transfers – a clientelist policy tactically aimed at the social and electoral segments where he needed to mobilise votes,” said Luis C Córdova-Alarcón, a political violence researcher and professor at the Central University of Ecuador. “That’s how you can begin to understand where that one million-vote lead came from,” he said.

Córdova-Alarcón said there were two other contributing factors in Noboa’s victory.

The first was the lingering memory of the 10-year presidency of Rafael Correa – González’s political mentor – a period marked by social advances thanks to a commodity boom, but also by corruption and accusations of creeping authoritarianism.

The second was the fact that what was once one of the safest countries in Latin America has, in recent years, recorded the region’s highest homicide rate – a crisis that Noboa’s declared “war on drugs” in January 2024 has failed to resolve.

Noboa’s disregard for the constitution and the numerous human rights violations committed by his mano dura (iron fist) offensive earned the president mounting accusations of authoritarianism.

Córdova-Alarcón said the outlook was only likely to worsen. “Given the context in which this election has taken place, Noboa has no incentives to change,” he said.

Abad said that although she still fears for her life due to her public disputes with Noboa, she hoped that he “has learned to listen and can fulfil his promises because the problems haven’t gone: we still face sky-high insecurity, a struggling economy, and widespread poverty”.

In March, the electoral court suspended her political rights for allegedly committing “gender-based political violence” against Noboa’s foreign minister, Gabriela Sommerfeld, by accusing her of persecution. Meanwhile, Abad’s complaints against Noboa have gone nowhere.

Noboa’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but at a campaign event in late March, the president referred to Abad as “a traitor who’s already been dismissed”.

Officially, she remains Ecuador’s vice-president until 24 May, when Noboa begins his new term with businesswoman María José Pinto as his second-in-command.

“Until 24 May and beyond, I will continue to fight for my rights because, in the end, it sets a precedent for those women who will occupy this position,” said Abad.

South African police have rescued an American pastor who was abducted last week while he was conducting a sermon, as kidnappings have soared over the last decade in the country.

Three unidentified suspects were killed during the “high-intensity shootout” on Tuesday in which Joshua Sullivan, a missionary from Tennessee, was rescued, the Hawks, the police unit that deals with serious crime in South Africa, said in a statement.

Kidnappings in the country have more than trebled in the past decade, according to police statistics, with 17,061 recorded in the year to March 2024. South Africa, one of the world’s most unequal countries, also has one of the world’s highest murder rates, with more than 27,000 that year, 50% higher than a decade earlier.

Sullivan was seized on Thursday night while he was preaching at the Fellowship Baptist church, where he had been a missionary since 2018 in the township of Motherwell outside the city of Gqeberha in Eastern Cape province.

Four gunmen stormed the church, stealing two mobile phones from congregation members before taking Sullivan. A few hours later, his truck was found abandoned.

The kidnappers were eventually tracked to a house in KwaMagxaki, about a 20-minute drive from the church, across the Swartkops River. Suspects inside a vehicle opened fire while attempting to flee, the police said.

The Hawks statement said: “The victim was found inside the same vehicle from which the suspects had launched their attack. Miraculously unharmed, he was immediately assessed by medical personnel and is currently in an excellent condition.”

Sullivan’s mother, Tonya Morton Rinker, said in a Facebook post: “My Baby is free! Joshua was rescued earlier today!! He is home with Meagan and the kids … Thank you for your support and prayers.”

An earlier post by Rinker described Sullivan as a “big-hearted gentle giant”. It said the 34-year-old had first travelled to South Africa with his wife, Meagan, for six months in 2015, before returning as “church-planting” missionaries and becoming fluent in Xhosa, the most common language in the Eastern Cape. The couple have four children and have “taken in two Xhosa children”.

A report by the Institute of Security Studies, a local thinktank, found 44% of kidnappings were during vehicle hijackings to extort money quickly. Another 22% were tied to robberies, while only 5% were for ransom. It was not immediately clear what the motive for Sullivan’s kidnapping was.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

Tens of thousands of Spotify users around the world have reported being unable to stream music on the app.

Downdetector, which tracks platforms, showed more than 48,000 outage reports for Spotify worldwide on Wednesday afternoon.

In the UK, the number of people reporting that Spotify was not functioning peaked at about 1.30pm, after problems began 30 minutes earlier. By 3pm, the number had fallen to about 10,000.

A Spotify spokesperson said: “We are aware of the outage and working to resolve it as soon as possible. The reports of this being a security hack are completely inaccurate.”

They suggested that people seeking ongoing updates on the outage should check the @SpotifyStatus channel.

The Sweden-based streaming platform did not provide further information on what had caused the problem, or for how long its services may be affected.

Spotify, which has more than 675 million users worldwide, told the BBC “the issue with search has been addressed” and it was rolling out an update to its users.

Users said they were still able to play music they had downloaded on to their devices, but were unable to view artists or use the search function on the app. Others said the platform was slow or unresponsive.

After trying to search for music, Spotify appears to time out, displaying the message “something went wrong” with a refresh button.

Many users expressed their frustration on social media, including that the outage had interrupted their gym sessions or study routines.

Canada’s Green party has been removed from the country’s two election debates amid accusations it would “undermine the integrity” of the events, just hours before leaders square off in Montreal.

The last-minute upheaval follows a decision to shift the timing of the first televised debate on Wednesday evening over fears the French language showdown would clash with a closely watched Montreal Canadiens ice hockey game.

The independent leaders’ debates commission announced on Wednesday morning that it had revoked the Green party’s inclusion from both the French and English debates after determining the party “intentionally” reduced the number of candidates running in the election for strategic reasons.

“Deliberately reducing the number of candidates … is inconsistent with the Commission’s interpretation of party viability,” the commission said in its decision to revoke the inclusion of the party’s co-leaders, Jonathan Pedneault and Elizabeth May. The commission said that inclusion of a Green leader would “undermine the integrity of the debates and the interests of the voting public”.

Canada’s federal election is on 28 April. Only two debates will be held: one in French on 16 April and the other in English on 17 April.

In order to qualify for the only two federal debates, a party needs to meet two of three criteria: it must be running candidates in at least 90% of Canada’s 343 ridings 28 days before the 28 April general election, poll above 4% and have a sitting member of parliament. Despite initially indicating they would run a full slate, the Greens eventually only nominated 232 candidates.

Pedneault accused the commission trying to “silence” the party, and said the last-minute change was “unjust and baseless”.

The decision to exclude the Greens came a day after commission shifted the debate timing to avoid clashing with the Montreal Canadiens-Carolina Hurricanes match. The team is facing a must-win game in order to advance to the national hockey league playoffs.

On Tuesday, both the Bloc Québécois and New Democratic party requested the debate be rescheduled. The NDP said in a news release that failing to change the timing of the debate would effectively force people to choose between “political engagement and national pride”.

“Hockey is in our blood,” said leader Jagmeet Singh, adding the commission risked looking “out of touch” with the national mood if it didn’t change course.

Later that day, the commission relented and agreed to move the debate to 6pm eastern time, a decision supported by all parties.

The last time Montreal reached the playoffs was 2021.

Changing the debate because of an important hockey game has precedent: in 2011, the then Bloc Québécois leader, Gilles Duceppe, asked for the French-language debate be rescheduled to avoid conflict with a key playoff showdown between the Canadiens and the Boston Bruins, a request the commission agreed to.

The Liberal party is polling ahead of rival Conservatives and poised to capture a majority government. For the Tories, a party that has seen a dramatic reversal of political fortunes, the debates are widely seen as a last-ditch attempt to regain momentum.

Police used a stun gun on two people, and arrested three attenders overall, at a town hall meeting hosted by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday.

Protesters repeatedly interrupted Greene during a town hall in Acworth, which is about 30 minutes outside Atlanta. One man, Andrew Russell Nelms, began booing Greene almost as soon as she began speaking, and was dragged out of the room by police officers, who used a stun gun on him, according to the New York Times.

“Bye!” Greene said repeatedly as protesters were escorted out of the room by police.

As ever, Greene mounted an ardent defense of Donald Trump, touting to constituents his plans to cut taxes and downsize the federal government while parrying questions about whether his administration would slice safety net programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Police were kept busy removing protesters who interrupted Greene as she spoke, including one who, after the congresswoman praised how the Trump administration was bringing the full weight of federal law enforcement against undocumented immigrants, yelled, “How about the KKK?”

“I’m glad they got thrown out. That’s exactly what I wanted to see happen,” she said after the roughly hourlong event. “This isn’t a political rally or a protest. I held a town hall tonight. You know who was out of line? The protesters,” Greene said after the event, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Essence Johnson, the chair of the Cobb county Democratic party, said the protesters had been “unjustly arrested”.

“People are passionate now. They’re upset. They’re frustrated. They believe democracy is being taken away from them. They’re at their wits end,” she said, according to the Journal-Constitution.

There was an armed police presence for the event at the Acworth community center and access to the town hall was tightly controlled, with attenders having to write down their address to show they were Greene’s constituents and show ID at the door, the Georgia Recorder reported. There were also reportedly dozens of demonstrators outside the event.

The House speaker, Mike Johnson, has urged Republican members to stop holding in-person town halls after facing demonstrations and heated questions at them. While Greene’s district is solidly Republican, the portion of it where she held the town hall is the most left-leaning portion of it, the Journal-Constitution noted.

Reporters were barred from interviewing attenders at the town hall and Greene did not take live questions at the event, but instead read prescreened ones, the Georgia Recorder reported.